Does she still love Lenny?

"What I love most about the relationship is that he knows so little about my life. He doesn't know a thing about my marriage to Tom, never paid attention to the gossip.

"How refreshing, to have a clean slate. I feel oddly . . .' - she paused, searching for the right word - 'safe,'" she concluded.

"Fingers crossed for the future,' she said with a wink.

"I just hope my life doesn't scare him off."

It's true that whenever Nicole and Kravitz are in public, they are besieged by photographers - and its certainly not because of him. She is considered to be one of the most powerful people in showbusiness. This is a woman who attracts attention when she goes to the dentist.

In the early stages of their romance, Nicole and Kravitz would arrive and depart from certain functions separately, lest they be pictured together. They wanted to be sure of how they felt about one another before announcing it to the world.

"But he told her: 'Look, we're adults. I think we have to just live our lives, and to hell with the gossips,'" observed Nicole's friend Darlene Montgomery.

Nicole agreed but wasn't sure how to proceed so she sought the advice of her friend and the woman she calls her "New York mother", actress Lauren Bacall with whom she has made two films, Dogville, and Birth, to be released next year.

According to one of Bacall's closest friends: "Nicole called Betty [Lauren] to ask if she thought it best to keep Lenny under wraps or, do as Lenny suggested and have her publicist issue a statement about their friendship.

"I agree with Lenny," said Lauren. "Why bother trying to keep it quiet?"

Bacall, 79, who married Humphrey Bogart in 1945, is a veteran of showbusiness publicity. "It's too stressful trying to keep your private life out of the media," she told Nicole, "and you're too big a star to care what anyone thinks."

Next day, Nicole's spokeswoman issued a cautious statement: "They're very close. He's very important to her."

Lauren then sent flowers to Nicole with a card that read: "Good show, girl. Let it all hang out. Have a ball."

"I think she deserves happiness, and in great abundance," said Lauren Bacall, "and if it's with Lenny Kravitz, then, wonderful.

"However, I don't know how I feel about the nose ring. I draw the line at men with earrings in their noses."

In September and October, Nicole and Lenny made the Manhattan social rounds very publicly, leading friends to conclude that she was happy enough with the romance to share it with paparazzi.

But when the couple went to the opera with Conor and Isabella, Nicole cringed as she looked at photographs of them in a newspaper. "This is such overkill," she told one of her circle.

"Is there no way to avoid causing such a sensation every time we go out."

"I don't see how," observed her assistant. "Not as long as you are Nicole Kidman, anyway."

He has a place in the Bahamas, a beachfront shack with no distractions, where he writes music.

Nicole has said that she looks forward to going to the island to rough it with him, though it's hard for her friends to imagine her without her faithful entourage of girlfriends and assistants.

Kravitz is also very funny, unlike Tom who is much more buttonedup.

Lenny doesn't care what people think about anything.

He is the only son of a television news producer Sy Kravitz and the late actress Roxie Roker.

He was born in New York in 1964, and moved to Los Angeles at 11.

I interviewed Roxie Roker many times and distinctly remember young Len - or 'Leonard' as his mother called him. He was 12 when I first met him.

"Leonard, say hello to the nice reporter," his mother said.

"Hell, no!" said the youngster. He then bolted from the room.

"Leonard!" his mother called after him. "You watch your language, and come back here this instant."

"No!" he shouted back at her.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I guess no one will ever be able to tame that boy,' she said. Lenny went on to attend Beverly Hills High School, where he studied music. 'As a child, Lenny was a lot like Nic's son, Conor, is today,' says a friend. "Conor is a polite kid, but Nic never knows what's going to come out of his mouth.

"He's beginning to assert his independence. So, she lets him have an opinion, rather than stifle him. Lenny is already attached to Conor. He's always wanted a son."

Of course, Conor already has a father. Some reports suggest that Nicole has talked to Tom about her relationship with Lenny, and that he approves of it.

Close friends of hers, however, say that she would never seek Tom Cruise's approval about such a personal matter. "Are you mad?" asked one friend. "Tom has no say-so in Nic's life, unless the issue directly relates to the children. She would never ask his permission, or even his opinion, of someone she's dating."

But however strong the relationship, reports that Kravitz and Nicole will soon be announcing their engagement - it was claimed they planned a party just before Christmas for friends and family - are wide of the mark, according to Nicole's friend who says it's much too soon for such commitment.

So what does the future hold? "Every time I have been out with him, I have had so much fun," Nicole said of Kravitz.

She recently presented him with a £1,500 Gucci watch. In turn, he gave her a diamond necklace. "I never knew a "bad boy" could be such a good man," she observed.

Her friend recalled: "She asked me: 'Do you think I'm being silly? Is it too fast?' I told her that it happens when it happens, and good for her that she's found someone."

Nicole reached for her friend's hand and placed it on her chest.

"Feel that?" she asked with a soft smile. "The way my heart pounds when I think of him? That's real. I think it's the real thing."